


Where You Ought to Be

by davidwelch158



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29040945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/davidwelch158/pseuds/davidwelch158
Summary: The Hogwarts Sorting Hat: Britain's Magical Superweapon.
Kudos: 6





	Where You Ought to Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is in response to a Reddit prompt https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/l623lv/the_sorting_hat_puts_the_characters_into_the/ that suggested the Sorting Hat is some sort of emotional support baseball cap, sorting children to the House which best provides for their personal growth and psychological development. Would a Magical Britain which makes an eleven year old fight and kill an adult teacher then sends him back to an abusive home with a pat on the head and some House points, use such a namby-pamby piece of millinery? Of course not.

When British Magicals gather, whether with glasses of port in book lined studies or cups of tea in elegant drawing rooms, a favourite topic is their school days. Devilish pranks are recounted, malicious teachers vilified, punishments inflated in the retelling, the salacious gossip of their youths recycled; but the one story everyone tells is of the Sorting Hat.

The absurd accounts of the Hogwarts' sorting from their siblings and cousins, the terror of crossing the Great Hall under the curious gazes of a thousand children, the brim slipping down over their eyes then, and at this the speaker's voice will turn low and reverent, the words. The precisely calibrated pearls of wisdom slipped into their ears which convinced them of the correctness of their sorting, that fired them with the zeal to live up to the ideals of their assigned House. "It was," the tale invariably concludes, "what made me the wizard," or witch, "I am today."

In the rosy glow of reminiscence, unleashing a mind reading piece of semi-sapient headgear on the unshielded minds of eleven year-olds appears twee and nonthreatening, an amusing conversation piece in the best traditions of British amateurism. Our alumni sneer at the continentals with their military regimentation, still more at the Americans and their new-fangled notions. Good old Hoggy Hogwarts is good enough for us.

Fools! The Sorting Hat was created in an age of darkness, in the interregnum between the fall of the ancient world and the rise of the new, when thousands of years of knowledge and tradition might yet be lost. Housekarls and Völva, warriors all, the Founders made it to be the rod and the staff of Magical Britain, pouring in their personalities and their magic, as close as they could come to a Horcrux without slipping irretrievably into madness. Equipped with the finest Legilimency and Divination they could enchant, it would Sort as their country needed.

And in September '91 the Hat was called on once more.

"You're bright, I'll grant that much, at least compared to the rest of these troglodytes, but if I need clever children I can create them. No, what's important is that you're friendless and lonely. Don't deny it. You know full well you're a hectoring bully who's alienated every schoolmate. But that's what I need. Someone to glom onto the first peer to show them any kindness and never let go. I'm making you the big sister, to chivvy and chase the other two into doing the minimum amount of work."

"One more of you to go and I can already see you're the least Weasley. Not a leader; not smart; not studious; not funny; not even equipped with a womb. Perfect sidekick material. Loyal, mostly, because you are nothing without the Boy Hero's reflected glory but never ambitious enough to usurp his role."

"If only I could sort you where you deserve! ... What did you think I meant? ... Have you already forgotten this afternoon? You and your goons bull your way into his compartment, insult his friend and, by implication, his mother then, when you don't get your way, threaten the Boy-Who-Lived, Britain's best-beloved hero. ... Don't even bother, I could eat your father and spit out the bones. ... Begging is unnecessary; the Salazar part of me is weeping but the Chosen One needs a nemesis; someone so obnoxious and stupid that Blood Purism is never attractive, no matter how dreadfully the Muggles have treated him."

"They've really done a number on you, Mr Potter, those Dursleys. You're devious and obdurate sometimes, but mostly lazy and dull. Still we only need you to step in front of the Killing Curse and there's only one House to nurture your cannon fodder tendencies. Oh and Mr Riddle, you disgusting parasite, seven more years. That's all I'm allowing you of your immortality. When the time comes you'll remember that."

"The unchosen one; the runner-up; the discard; the misfire; the Boy-Whose-Parents-Brains-Were-Fried... Now, now, don't cry, I'm sure I'm very sorry... Wait, what's this... You and I are going to do a great thing together, Mr Longbottom, Neville if I may call you that; mostly me but even so... There's only one House for the man who's going to bear me into battle."


End file.
